Bloomberg's Erika Irish Brown Recognized by CollegeBound Initiative

Erika Irish Brown was honored for her contributions to the finance industry at the 2018 CollegeBound Initiative (CBI) Celebration on Tuesday evening, May 15, 2018. CBI is a comprehensive college guidance program which empowers more than 18,000 young women and men to realize their higher education and life potential.

The event, which took place at Jazz at Lincoln Center, also honored Wes Moore, CEO of Robin Hood, as well as CollegeBound Initiative Alumna Marjana Chowdhury, a Legal Analyst at BlackRock.

Erika joined Bloomberg as the company’s first Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion in 2015. She leads the development, implementation and monitoring of a global program to advance diversity and inclusion across the company’s human resources, including recruitment, retention, talent review, succession planning, career development and training. She is also active in promoting an institutional culture and inclusive environment to support diversity in all aspects of the business, including Bloomberg’s employee communities and external partnerships.

Prior to Joining Bloomberg, Brown was Bank of America’s Head of Diversity Recruiting, Program Management and Executive Recruiting. She has over 15 years of investment banking and capital markets experience at Morgan Stanley, the U.S. Treasury and Lehman Brothers.

A program of the Young Women’s Leadership Network (YWLN), which Bloomberg has supported since 2009, CBI places full-time college guidance experts in 36 high-need public schools. CBI counselors work one-on-one with every student to assist with their college awareness and access, while maximizing college placement and financial aid awards. 

Through Bloomberg Startup, the company’s education engagement program, we provide internship opportunities for the YWLN students and our employees provide mentoring and guidance with YWLN’s “Cool Women, Hot Jobs” program at their partner schools in Queens and East Harlem.

Students graduating from CBI partner high schools achieve four-year college degrees at approximately double the rate of their peers, with approximately 80% of CBI graduating seniors being the first in their family to attend college.

Read more about Diversity and Inclusion at Bloomberg. 

Click here to learn more about Bloomberg's social and environmental impact in the 2017 Impact Report.